John Terry will take the field against Croatia tomorrow evening with the memory of England's Wembley defeat two years ago still "burning in my stomach".

An England win would secure qualification for next year's World Cup in South Africa and erase memories of the loss to Croatia in November 2007, which knocked them out of the European Championship. The captain rates that game, which immortalised the then manager Steve McClaren as the "wally with a brolly", as the lowest point in his career to date.

Terry was sitting in the stands, recovering from knee surgery, as McClaren's reign ended in disarray with a farcical 3-2 defeat to the Croats. The recovery since under Fabio Capello has seen this team sweep all before them in Group Six and, while Terry insisted qualification would be greeted with a sense of "relief" rather than raucous celebration, the chance to exorcise the memories of the humiliation endured at the hands of these opponents is clear.

Terry suggested the sense of disappointment was as numbing as that endured after missing a penalty in the shoot-out at the 2008 Champions League final, when Chelsea would have beaten Manchester United had he scored. "I've had downs in my career: the Champions League, not qualifying for England … they're by far the biggest for me, not putting our team through when clearly on paper we should have done," he reflected. "When you're captain of the national side you carry the weight of everyone on your own shoulders. I took it very personally that we didn't qualify.

"That's been burning away in my stomach for a very long time. I wake up in the middle of the night still thinking about stuff. No one's speaking about revenge, but I'm sure if you asked every single player, that memory is still there. It was probably worse sitting in the stands knowing I couldn't do anything about it. So it would be important for me, personally, to reach a World Cup. This is a chance for us to correct things for ourselves, for the fans and for the nation. We owe it to everyone to finish the job."

Capello is expected to start with Aaron Lennon on the right with Emile Heskey retained up front. He dismissed Slaven Bilic's claims that his England team had "lost their Englishness", insisting his opposite number's attempts at mind games would merely serve to motivate the hosts. "Thank you, Mr Bilic," he said. "I have no need to motivate my players after this. He tried to provoke a reaction but, for me, it's a fantastic assist. All I need to say to my players is: 'Remember what Bilic said.' A team like England not qualifying for a Euro or World Cup is really a terrible thing for the players. For that reason, the motivation we will have is clear."

The Italian Capello was working as a pundit on Italian television on the night McClaren's side were beaten at Wembley and claims never to have watched a video of the debacle. "The players were down when the manager came in, but he has instilled a great belief in us," Terry added. "He's picked us up. And he deserves a lot of credit for that. It'll be a relief more than anything if we manage to qualify.

Terry added: "People talk about Croatia celebrating after winning here last time, even though they'd already qualified, but we'd have done the same had it been us. Over the course of that campaign, they'd been better. We had to look at ourselves. Given that we have some of the best players in the world playing in some of the biggest competitions, we should be qualifying. Simple as that.

"But look at Portugal, Argentina. There might be some really big teams who don't reach this World Cup. Going back to Chelsea after missing out on the Euros, the foreign lads didn't give a shit that we weren't there. When it came down to it, they didn't care. Their attitude was that, if England weren't there, their chances of winning would be bigger. So if we get to South Africa, we can be pleased if other big teams don't make it, too. But now we need to make sure. I watched about 10 minutes of one game [of Euro 2008] because I couldn't bear to watch the rest. The feeling that I should be there, England should be there … I couldn't bear it. We've got that in the back of our minds to use as inspiration for us."